


The Hatter on Mulberry street

by strawhat4life



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Cute, Fluff, Parent Fic, Slow Burn, apple thief, chaotic parents, oc child - Freeform, takes place after the end of the show, they haven't told anyone they're together yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-06-12 19:23:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19581007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawhat4life/pseuds/strawhat4life
Summary: The demons have decided to seek revenge on Crowley and Aziraphale after all, after they burn down Crowley's place and the two determine it isn't safe for Aziraphale at the shop they buy a nice little cottage in Adam's town and get rather close with their new neighbor who likes to hide in their garden and read. (Crappy summary i'm sorry)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this one is just a prologue and i will admit this takes a bit of time before they actually become 'parents' but once they do it'll get cute and chaotic i promise <3

The Hatter on Mulberry street

**Prologue**

Crowley couldn’t help but feel a deep sadness as he watched his apartment burn, the whole building had been evacuated thank god and Aziraphale stood beside him, squeezing his hand rather tightly. The Firemen would blame an electrical fire later, but the Angel and Demon knew otherwise.

The Demons had finally decided to try and get revenge on Crowley for the a-not-alypse and the events before. Aziraphale watched Crowley, the flames of the fire reflecting ominously in his glasses as he could only watch the scene before them sadly.

“You could always stay with me,” Aziraphale offered softly his eyes never leaving his Demon’s stone face though Aziraphale knew he was mourning on the inside, not that he’d ever admit it. Crowley shook his head though and shoved his free hand deep in his pocket

“No, I’m afraid that if they’re coming after me like this they’ll be after you next.” Crowley told him finally tearing his eyes away to look at Aziraphale, the Angel’s emotions were written all over his face he was worried, sad and concerned Crowley guessed that the last bit was for his sake.

“The shop isn’t safe for you anymore, afraid that this time we’ll actually have to run away.” Crowley said he’d offered it to Aziraphale on several occasions, to just throw it all away and run somewhere they’d be safe, somewhere no one would ever think to look for them or ever bother them but every time Aziraphale refused and even then Crowley only half meant it, he enjoyed humanity though he’d never actually admit it.

Aziraphale nodded agreeing and looked back to the burning building as he began to think before he remembered a conversation the last time, he had checked on Adam a few weeks ago.

“Adam says there’s a little cottage a bit away from his.” Aziraphale told him thoughtfully, they’d be closer to their friends and how could they be any safer than close to the anti-Christ anyway? Crowley seemed to debate it for a little bit and Aziraphale finally smiled

“Nice big garden out back, Adam says they have lovely apple trees.” Aziraphale said and he noted the smirk on Crowley’s face as he chuckled and shook his head

“Are you trying to tempt me angel?” Crowley asked him giving his hand a gentle squeeze which reassured Aziraphale that everything was going to be alright and so he loosened his grip on Crowley. Aziraphale shook his head at him smiling a bit himself

“No, of course not that is entirely your job.” Aziraphale told him and they both had a good laugh.

Within twenty-four hours (with the help of a miracle or two) the angel and the demon had moved into the lovely two floor home just a few streets from Adam’s house, who would have thought that they’d own a home together in a cute little town like this? Aziraphale was looking to see if there was any shop space for rent so that he could open his “book shop” and help to keep their cover and Crowley was beginning to talk about perhaps growing and selling some plants of his own, flowers were popular and humans seemed to enjoy vegetables. They actually felt like they could relax and enjoy their lives in this happy little neighborhood for once.


	2. The apple tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley gets mad at his new apple trees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is kind of dialogue heavy sorry about that <3

** Chapter one: Curiouser and curiouser **

The two lovers had been living in their new home for a few weeks now, everything in this little town seemed so peaceful.

“UNACCEPTABLE!”

Well…. except for this morning.

Aziraphale hurried out into the garden to see Crowley glaring at one of the apple trees that stood in their garden as he kicked its trunk

“Crowley! What on earth is wrong?” Aziraphale asked worried before he was hit with an apple, he looked at it completely perplexed only to realize that it had a large bite missing from it, Aziraphale frowned at it and looked at Crowley disgusted as the demon also held up a small broken branch that’d obviously come from the tree

“Don’t look at me like that, I didn’t do it he did!” Crowley shouted pointing at the apple tree whose leaves shook in fear like many of the plants had done before “How _dare_ you look so unpresentable!” Crowley said throwing the stick back at the tree again fuming with rage at his imperfect tree and Aziraphale could only look around and be grateful that it didn’t appear that any of their neighbors were watching them

“Crowley do you actually believe that your tree took a bite out of an apple?” Aziraphale asked him Crowley glared at the tree accusatorily as if expecting the tree to admit that it had done that to spite him and though the leaves shook it didn’t actually talk.

“Crowley, I think it’s more than likely that one of the children in the neighborhood did it.” Aziraphale told him though he didn’t wish to get them in trouble, Crowley wouldn’t purposely hurt children it was one of the things he loved about him after all.   
Crowley let out an exasperated sigh before conceding   
“Damn kids should stay out of the yard, there’s a fence for a reason after all.” Crowley said with an annoyed huff before he stormed inside chucking the apple at the ground Aziraphale went to follow when he heard a small laugh and paused to look around soon spotting a pair of blue eyes peeking in at him through the fence from their neighbors yard to the left only for them to quickly disappear.

Aziraphale suspected this may be their apple thief and yet he couldn’t help but smile and shake his head as he followed Crowley into the house.

Crowley went through this routine for a few more days after, he’d go out and find apple cores on the ground, he’d yell at the garden until Aziraphale came to calm him down and they’d go inside and have tea. Crowley decided that enough was enough one day and he was going to catch his apple thief and make them rue the day that they crossed his tree. He sat by the window with the curtains mostly drawn and waited while Aziraphale was out.

Waiting…and waiting…and waiting…

Why was waiting so dull? Crowley was beginning to grow impatient when he noticed the branches shook and it caught his attention, more so when he saw a little shoe fall out of his tree and he knew he had them! Crowley stormed out into the garden and stood under the tree glaring up where he saw a little girl staring down at him with a book clutched under her arm.

“Get down from there right now!” Crowley demanded pointing at the ground, the girl stared at him for a moment and didn’t move as if she thought that being completely still would keep him from seeing her through his dark glasses. When she realized that wouldn’t work, she settled herself on the branch that she had been about to climb on, out of his reach thankfully and smiled at him

“Hello,” she said as if he hadn’t just caught her in his garden, he was starting to see why perhaps God had been so upset when Eve had taken hers (Although he still thought throwing them to the wolves was a bit of an overreaction)

“What’s your name?” she asked him to lean on her book as she looked down at him, Crowley seethed a bit

“Get down from there right now! You’ll break your neck if you fall out of there!” Crowley scolded her the little girl sat back with her back to the trunk, pushing one of her chocolate brown pigtails out of her hair and fixing the little orange bow that matched her orange shirt lined with white lace

“No, I don’t think I will,” she decided and Crowley gaped at her, the girl couldn’t have been older than seven (Or perhaps she could even after all his time with Warlock children grew so fast and time passed so differently for him it was honestly hard to tell some of the time)

“You have too!” he told her “I just told you to get out of my tree.’

“Actually, it’s not really your tree,” The girl began with a smile as she kicked her legs hanging on either side of the branch “They’re actually Mrs. Harrington’s and she would let me climb the tree all the time.

Harrington, right that had been the one they bought the house from, except it was her husband who was off to live with their children because his batty wife had died. Was she old enough to actually understand what had happened? She certainly seemed smart enough to be a smart mouth that was for certain.

“Where the heck are your parents? Don’t they keep an eye on you like they should?!” Crowley asked her and the little one shrugged

“They’re at work, Mummy owns a bakery and doesn’t get home until late and daddy works in the city with some techno babble company.”

Crowley frowned, he couldn’t miracle her out of the tree it would draw to much attention and she’d tell the whole town and the whole point of this was to stay hidden. He supposed he could go next door and talk to whoever was watching the girl but she could run away by the time he got back, Aziraphale was much better with the reasoning part of this and Crowley wasn’t sure what to do at this point, they were at a bit of a stand off

“Well I’m not moving until you come down.” Crowley said sitting down and leaning against the trunk with his arms folded over his chest, the girl just smiled at him and nodded

“That’s fine, Mrs. Harrington used to sit and listen to me read,” The girl said opening the book that Crowley thought was much to big for a little girl to be reading on her own

“Would you like me to read to you too?” she asked him as she opened the book to the first page Crowley rolled his eyes only slightly annoyed, she made this seem like it was just a game and something fun rather than she was irritating a demon though he had to say she had the potential to make a good one if she wanted too.

“What’s the book?” he asked trying to sound as uninterested as possible, he was still trying to get her out of his tree after all   
“Alice in Wonderland, it’s my favorite.” She told him but then she thought for a moment “Actually I don’t really know if Alice is my favorite or Peter pan is, they’re both lovely stories I’m just not quite sure which I prefer you know?”

“Actually, no can’t say I do.” Crowley said with a sigh as he waited and even though he hadn’t asked her to she started reading the book aloud to him, Crowley listened for a while before his eyes began to droop and soon he had fallen asleep and was being woken by Aziraphale who gently shook him awake and Crowley snapped up looking up into the tree, the girl was gone and so was the shoe by his side

“Son of a- “he stopped himself from swearing and took the liberty to kick his apple tree again and yell at it instead, What Crowley didn’t yet know was that this was to become his new daily tradition. Every day he would catch the girl in the apple tree, he would insist on sitting below it until she would come down and even if he told her not to she would read to him until he fell asleep and she would escape while he slept and Aziraphale would wake him up when he got home from the “bookshop”

Every day Crowley was growing more and more frustrated about not being able to catch his apple thief, Aziraphale almost didn’t have the heart to tell him that since they were an angel and a demon that they didn’t actually _need_ sleep and that he was likely doing it on purpose without actually realizing it and perhaps he was actually fond of the child. But how could he tell him something like that?


	3. Not alice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale is better with kids than we thought

Crowley sat under his tree early that morning waiting to see just how this girl kept getting into it, he was determined to stay awake this time as well and finally get the little brat to stay out of his tree. When her pig tails peeked out from over the fence Crowley quirked a brow as she pulled herself up, another new book under her arm and then pulled herself onto one of the lower branches, Crowley probably could have pulled her down if he stood up but he pretended this time that he couldn’t. Besides if he touched her, she would go screaming her head off and cause a whole new problem for him any way

“So, Child what’s your name?” Crowley asked as he watched her settle in her usual spot, on a branch far up in the tree with her back to the trunk today the leaves had parted so that a nice beam of morning sunlight streamed through onto her pale olive skin and made her orange t-shirt seem even brighter.

“Why do you want to know?” she asked him curious as she looked down at him Crowley shrugged

“Well you can’t possibly like me calling you child all the time, certainly not as much as you like sitting in that damn tree and eating my apples.” Crowley said the girl seemed to debate before she shrugged a bit

“You can call me Alice,”

Crowley quirked a brow at her and sat up just a bit, the mischievous grin on her face already told him that it wasn’t actually her name

“Well Alice then I suppose you can call me Hatter.” Crowley responded just as Aziraphale made his way into the garden and smiled at him before glancing up and waving to the small child that sat on the branches above

“So, this is our little apple thief?” Aziraphale asked and she nodded, she readjusted herself so she could hang upside down and be closer to Aziraphale and offered her hand to him

“I’m Alice, you must be the march hare.” She said giggling Aziraphale was positively puzzled even when he heard Crowley snort with laughter and looked at the demon who chuckled to himself hoping for an explanation, when none came, he looked at her and shook her extended hand

“Um…afraid not dear, my name is Aziraphale and well I suspect you know Crowley.” Aziraphale said Alice or “Not Alice” pulled herself back up onto the branch and sat there for a while   
“Why’d you go and tell her that?” Crowley asked frowning “I’ve been trying to get her to tell me her name for just short of a week and you ruined it.”

Crowley could hear her laugh up above him and scowled even though it wasn’t as annoying to him as he would have thought it to be. Aziraphale smiled a bit and looked up at her

“What is your name my dear?” he asked her and the girl smiled  
“Alice,” she replied to him he could tell it wasn’t actually her name but he played along anyway seeing as Crowley had told him that the first book she’d read to him was Alice in Wonderland, which was impressive considering her young age and the fact that she was reading books that were perhaps a bit beyond her age. Now from the looks of it she was reading “Mathilda” by Roald Dahl.

“That is a lovely book, would you perhaps like some tea and like to discuss it?” Aziraphale asked and the girl grinned before she nodded, Crowley watched in amazement as the girl finally climbed out of the trees branches and plopped onto the ground beside him Aziraphale smiled at her   
“I’ll be right back with the tea, Crowley stay here and keep her company why don’t you?”

Crowley didn’t miss the smug smirk on the Angel’s face, a week it had taken him to get a name and get her out of the tree and the angel had done it in less than five minutes. That was just cruel.

When Aziraphale was out of sight Crowley looked to the little girl who was eye level with him now that she was down on the ground and he was sitting, she had a light olive skin tone and the biggest blue eyes demon had ever seen on such a small child. She seemed short but perhaps that was just her age, her chocolate brown ponytails seemed to make her look just a bit taller but not by much though the orange t shirt and jean shorts was something that made him frown a bit

“You really like the color orange, don’t you?” Crowley commented quirking a brow at her as she waited patiently, Alice looked at him with a smile and nodded

“It’s my favorite,”

It would have to be, every time Crowley saw her, she had _something_ orange on. Orange hair bows, orange shirt, orange sneakers (though he’d give her credit at least todays shoes were white.) though he had to wonder how she always managed to stay over here in a tree all day with her sitter or her parents never once wondering where she’d run off too. Shouldn’t someone be looking for her really?

“Where are your parents?” Crowley asked her   
Alice sat beside him in the grass and opened her book looking at the illustrations and Crowley couldn’t help but notice that for once she wasn’t actually trying to read it to him.   
“Work.” She replied after a little bit and of course Crowley could hear the distasteful tone in her voice, evidently, she didn’t like the idea of them going to work then again what child did? Crowley let her read for a moment before he asked the next question

“And your sitter?” Crowley asked her curiously Alice looked up finally and he could again see the strong dislike on her face  
“She’s asleep on the couch, she won’t wake up until just before mum comes home, I’m back by then.” Alice said looking at the book again and Crowley scowled no wonder she liked sitting in the apple tree so much, there obviously wasn’t anything else for her to do around the house.

“You always get to run around and do whatever you want?” Crowley asked her Alice didn’t answer, she didn’t really have to Aziraphale returned with a picnic blanket and some tea for them. Alice stood and took the blanket carefully spreading it out before sitting on it and Aziraphale set out the tea for them he even took the risk of adding a plate of cookies to the tray before he set it down, Crowley knew that they hadn’t been there before but he kept his mouth shut. They were supposed to be hiding after all.

So what usually would have turned into an afternoon of Crowley sitting under an apple tree and listening to alice read now turned into an afternoon of tea and chatting, more so than Crowley was used to after all. The kid was actually a very nice child, she knew a lot for her age. Crowley was a bit surprised, usually children who were allowed to run wild ended up being wild but Alice or “Not Alice” was very different, she was well mannered and nice albeit a bit mischievous the whole thing still had Crowley wondering what her home life might be like.

“EVIE!”

Welp, looked like he was about to find out.

Not alice, or better known as “Evie” (Ironic isn’t it?) jumped and seemed a bit nervous at that  
“That your sitter?” Crowley asked her and Evie shook her head scrambling to her feet  
“mum, she’s home early thank you very much-“  
“EVIE!!” Evie didn’t get a moment for a good bye as she hurried around the fence, Crowley didn’t think about it as he stood and followed after her into the driveway where he spotted a not very happy looking mother in the driveway with an equally irritated looking teenage girl who very obviously was the sitter.

Crowley cleared his throat and as the three turned to him the scolding was an immediate stop  
“Sorry about that, kid said she was invited to play in the yard a lot so we didn’t think it would hurt to invite her over for tea.” Crowley said The mother was a bit baffled as Crowley approached and offered his hand  
“Anthony J. Crowley, sorry for the scare we didn’t mean any harm.”

Evie was amazed after all this time of her terrorizing him over some apples and a tree he was trying to help? She couldn’t believe it even as she sat there and watched Crowley sweet talk her mother she could even see her mum begin to relax a bit, Aziraphale joining in soon enough but the sitter was another story.

“She’s been missing for the better part of an hour, you should have called first.” The sitter said as if trying to remind everyone that the child was in trouble until Crowley leveled her with a glare over his glasses that had her stopping her tracks

“Actually we did, got the answering machine. We would have come over ‘cept we didn’t want to disturb your nap time.” Crowley said Evie noticed a little flick of his fingers and was confused, she knew hey hadn’t called her house because she would have heard the telephone ringing which made it all the stranger when her mother went inside, checked the phone and Mr. Crowley’s voice came over asking if Evie could come to tea. The whole thing was very strange and Evie couldn’t help but be thrilled when her mother had to have “A long talk” With the sitter. Evie took the opportunity to go up to her bedroom, her shelves were filled with books and her walls plastered in drawings she’d done of the adventures she hoped to have, a map on the far wall indicated with stickers the places she wished to go even if she had to draw a few of them in on her own. Evie placed her book on her shelf and sat up in her window looking over the fence to where she could see Mr. Aziraphale and Mr. Crowley now sitting in the backyard chatting away and laughing a little. Evie could definitely tell that she was going to like her new neighbors, as strange as they were there was obviously something special about them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So to clear up any confusion, she likes the character Alice and so tells that to Crowley but her real name is Evelyn "Evie" Hatter for those who are confused (Her parents seriously missed an opportunity there.) Sorry it took so long to get this one out! been so busy lately but i'll try to update again before the end of the day.


End file.
